Story part 1 – The Imperial Botanist

“We don’t want the likes of ye here!”

Benjamin raised his head over a leather-bound notebook and sighed heavily. Great, truly fantastic. Barely had he crossed the city gates and already a representative of the local gutter club crawled out to greet him. He had nothing against welcoming committees, what’s more, someone of his status certainly deserved a small parade with music, red carpet and a children’s choir singing in the background, but instead he got a drunkard, the only music for whom was probably the sound of a bottle smashed every night.

“Excuse me?” he replied, mustering up a shred of politeness. Manners before prejudice, that’s what the father always said, may the earth rest lightly on him. “You must have me mistaken for someone else.”

The drunkard grunted in response, but it was impossible to tell if he laughed or simply choked on his tongue. Benjamin flipped through his notebook again in search of the address. He had no time for chitchat, the journey from the capital was lengthy enough, his suitcase heavy and he himself tired. He would nonetheless gladly sprint away from the gate and leave the approaching aroma behind him, if only he knew which way to run.

“I don’t reckon I did, ye smarty-pants.” It smelled of cheap alcohol, and the drunkard wobbled and took a shaky step towards Benjamin. Somewhere between one burp and the next he caught his balance. “Listen to me now. We don’t want ye perfumed, oiled-up capital boys in the service of the damned Empire. They sent ye to spy on us, huh? To tell us the, ye reckon, that things are going to get better from now on? Ye will tell us ye will take care for us, but we don’t want yer kind here. Ptui!”

An ugly, dirty mixture of saliva and who knows what sprinkled the pavement. This was no longer mere street rudeness, it was a blatant affront for which even his father would not have stood. Benjamin slammed the notepad shut an inch off the drunkard’s face, straightened up and smoothed his chic vest.

“My kind, meaning what exactly? Bathed? Dressed? Preferring the vertical to the horizontal? Now you listen to me now, good man, for my patience also has its limits. Tell me where I can find your local meat market so we can part our ways in peace,” he said. “The meat market? Rings a bell? The… what was it again, the Fat Butcher?”

The drunkard squirmed, as if he just took a slap in the face instead of a relatively simple question. In fact, he probably deserved it too, but that was beside the point now. Benjamin rolled his eyes, looked in the notebook again, and articulated slowly.

“I am looking for a butcher’s shop in Slickhaven and I believe I am in the right city. Where is the Greasy Butcher?”

The drunkard lightened up instantly.

“Oh, yeah. I know that one!”

“Great! Do you know where I can find him?”

“If ye grunt nicely, he’ll find ye himself,” he sneered. “Imperial pig, oink, oink.”

“How dare you…”

“The city is akin to a theater, isn’t it?” a new voice came behind him. A skinny, neatly dressed young man took a step in front of Benjamin and pushed the idiotically proud of himself drunkard slightly aside. “A multitude of scenes, disguises, masks. Someone plays the part of a butcher, someone else is a doctor, and someone else is a local vagabond. I assure you, however, that in his rudeness he is completely harmless. His presence… breathtaking, that much is true, and it’s all the more of a reason to not waste your own breath on polemics. Shoo, shoo, thank you already!” he shouted and chased away the drunkard who started mumbling something about an imperial conspiracy. The stranger bowed slightly. “At your service. It seems that my role was to rescue you from this predicament. Forgive my curiosity, but I guess yours is being a traveler, a newcomer in town, sir…?”

Benjamin breathed a sigh of relief. Hopefully Slickhaven had to offer more well-behaved youth than old lunatics.